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In an era where Hollywood is always looking for the next big reboot, what better place to find a piece of brilliant undiscovered IP than a store stuffed with some of the most obscure VHS tapes ever made? That’s not exactly what brought Caught Stealing co-stars Austin Butler and Zoë Kravitz to Kim’s Video Underground at the Alamo Drafthouse in Lower Manhattan, but after digging through the stacks with Rolling Stone film critic David Fear, there may just be a Gymkata remake in Butler’s future.
As a bit of scene-setting, Kim’s Video, for New Yorkers of a certain vintage, was once the place to explore the vast, bonkers expanses of the cinematic universe. Its various locations were a staple of the lower Manhattan landscape during the Nineties and 2000s (the last one closed in 2014, but the “Underground” locale opened at Alamo earlier this year).
This is why it’s no surprise thatCaught Stealingdirector Darren Aronofsky — a born and raised New Yorker — chose to pay homage to the retailer by recreating its old Avenue A storefront as a bit of set dressing for the Nineties-set crime thriller. Kravitz, who also grew up in NYC, was Kim’s denizen too, frequenting the location on St. Mark’s Place.
“I used to live there, man,” she recalls while browsing the selection at Kim’s Video Underground.
As for the pulls themselves, Butler and Kravitz start out with one of the more comparatively mainstream selections: After Hours, the Martin Scorsese classic starring Griffin Dunne, who also appears in Caught Stealing.
“This movie is incredible,” Butler says. “This is the first film Darren and I talked about when we talked about making [Caught Stealing]. What a fun Scorsese movie.”
“It’s a great movie,” Kravitz adds. “It’s also so, like, screwball comedy. Griffin is so funny in this.”
During their perusal, Butler and Kravitz also talk about seeing Brian De Palma’s 1981 thriller Blow Out while working on Caught Stealing, while shouting out Jackie Chan flicks, Kevin Smith’s Tusk, and Aronofsky’s directorial debut Pi. They also find a whole bunch of weird low-budget nonsense, like Gymkata, a 1985 martial arts flick starring Olympic gymnast Kurt Thomas, and The Boy in the Plastic Bubble, a made-for-TV movie starring John Travolta as a teen with such a vulnerable immune system he has to live inside an incubator-like bubble.
“You should remake this,” Kravitz tells Butler, handing him the copy of the latter.
The Kim’s Video Underground excavation also prompted some fond reminiscing on the days of VHS tapes and video rental stores.
“I’d rent a movie and you’d only have three to five days, so I’d watch them over and over again,” Kravitz says. “Because you had to return it.”
“Also, you have to make a decision,” Butler says. “You’d go to the story, and you’d have to really agree. Now, there’s the thing where you’re looking at streaming and you can look for two hours and not even watch something.”
